TX-SEN: True to Form

[Florida Man for Crime]

one of mah coll-eegs over at Texahs said the followin "I don't know. I'm even seeing a lot of Beto signs in the yuppie Highland Park area outside of Dallas. Not sure if that area normally leans left, but I would be shocked if it does."

now this quote got me here thinkin' mah fellow 'merican Cruz is uh bout to get a bigger ass whoopin from Papa Beto than mah paps gave me as a lil lad, and boy was that smart.

i yoused ta think that beta was gonna get his effette twinky butt handed to him by ol lyin ted, but dat dere ol quinnipiac poll gave me second thoughts. looks like teddy might be headed to the woodshed thanks to the (((bushes))) and their clan getting revenge for jeb, plus all dem illegals floodin over the boarder.

i'll be ratin dis one likely d

All Ted Cruz has to do to win back Highland Park is to admit that Trump was right regarding Cruz's father's complicity in the JFK assassination.

All he has to do to win elsewhere in the state is just to say "Brooklyn Beto."

[Florida Man for Crime]

I dont think Cruz is thinks hes gonna win easily. I think he is panicking. All of his actions are ones someone who was extremely vulnerable would take.
1. Not having a debate
2. Calling all possible doners
3. Not releasing internal polling
Hes not even airing many ads.

These are not really abnormal.

1) Trying to avoid debates is common for whoever is ahead and thinks they will win without a debate, especially for incumbents (because they don't want to give more attention to challengers). If anything, if Cruz thought he would lose, he would be the one asking Beto for a debate.

2) It is not surprising that Cruz is trying to raise money... True, Beto's fundraising is impressive and Cruz is doing his due diligence to try to counter that as best as he can, but it is not abnormal in any way for incumbents to be trying to raise money, and raising significant amounts of money...

3) Ads are usually most effective closest to the election. Sometimes candidates do run ads early, but very often they wait until closer to the election, and then let loose their barrage. This is no different from what e.g. Bill Nelson is doing in Florida.

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It is quite plausible (even obvious) that if Beto gets more name recognition, he will do better than if he has less name recognition. Cruz is aware of that.

But that does not mean that Cruz will lose if Beto gets name recognition, all it means is that Beto will do better than he otherwise would if he gets name recognition.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Ted Cruz is going to win re-election. We are not going to lose this seat. Senator Cruz is one of the great heroes of our time and he is not going to lose to someone like Beto O'Rourke. He is too energized and too committed to lose. When it is all said and done, Senator Cruz will win this election.

Agreed, safe R Texas.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Who remembers back in 2010 when Republicans were pretending that they could win CA-GOV and CA-SEN?

How did that work out for them?

[Florida Man for Crime]

Who remembers back in 2010 when Republicans were pretending that they could win CA-GOV and CA-SEN?

How did that work out for them?

McCain did worse than Goldwater for CA, meanwhile Hillary gave the best record since 1996 for TX. There's a bit of a difference.

I would agree that TX-SEN 2018 will be closer than CA-GOV and CA-SEN 2010, but that doesn't mean O'Rourke is going to win it.

Even light blue states like CO held firm against the 2010 Red Wave.

Texas is at least as red as CO was blue.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Beto O’Rourke yard signs are everywhere. Where are Ted Cruz’s?

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Basically, the reason why Cruz does not have lots of signs is that past studies have shown that yard signs are not effective.

Cruz is running a smart campaign based on evidence. Still, if yard signs are ever effective, I would guess that they are most effective in this sort of situation - where a state has traditionally not backed a given party, and overwhelmingly has traditionally backed another party, yard signs could have that psychological effect of "making voters think it is OK/socially acceptable to vote for a Democrat." One would think that if there is any such effect, it would be strongest when it is left entirely un-countered.

The article goes on to note that based on the same research showing that yard signs are ineffective, Rick Perry did not use them against Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 TX-GOV primary, and Perry nonetheless won decisively. However, in that case Perry was already known, and voters in TX (especially Republican primary voters) obviously already thought it was socially acceptable to support him.

Whereas, at least there is some possibility that maybe it helps Beto get over that hurdle, and also it can't hurt his name recognition.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Wow--- just came home from work and we have tons of interesting discussions and information sharing regarding the funding priorities of the Cruz/Beto campaigns in Tejas, that opens up all sorts of interesting angles.

I guess two questions that I do have is:

1.) Why is it that Cruz has spent $5 Million more than Beto according to the Open Sources link, but yet his poll numbers appear to have dropped and the race has tightened up by all objective indications (Not saying that Texas is going to vote DEM for US-SEN in '18), just that there is something that feels different about this race.

2.) Where has the Cruz campaign been spending their money and why isn't it working?

So regarding the question of "how did Cruz spend all his money," I took a quick look at the FEC reports on expenditures for both Cruz and for Beto.

The data is somewhat out of date (only through the end of June), so we are missing the last 2 months, but nonetheless is pretty informative. There will only be updated data with the next FEC filing deadline in 1.5 months (mid Oct). I grouped all the FEC expenditure data by the categories of type of expenditure listed on the FEC forms. These are not entirely consistent, because the people filing the reports don't use completely consistent categories, but they paint the general picture. After the top 25 categories, I grouped everything else into "other."

First, here is Cruz's spending:

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From this you can see that the biggest single thing Cruz has been spending on is fundraising. That is the fundraising phone calls, and probably a lot/all of the printing/postage (i.e. mail). Then there is payroll. The other important thing to note is that Cruz spent a pretty good amount of money on database management, list rental, etc. In addition, Cruz spent money on a variety of consultants, which adds up. That is to support his fundraising, and also later on will be to support his voter contact/GOTV.


Next, here is Beto's spending:

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By far and away the biggest category for Beto is digital advertising. He is going nuts on digital advertising. The second thing is Payroll/Salary. Beto probably has a larger campaign with more field staff (this is normal for Democrats as compared to Republicans), so he pays more salary. And then the 3rd category that Beto is spending on is T-Shirts, Merchandise (i.e. yard signs). Those 3 things are basically the entirety of Beto's campaign (or were until he started running TV ads) ---

1) Digital Advertising.
2) Payroll for his staff/field campaign.
3) Yard signs, T-shirts, and bumper stickers.

That is basically it, and this also answers the question of why Beto has so many yard signs - because that is one of the main things he has spent money on. He has spent a huge amount of money on yard signs and other campaign swag/merchandise.

And not the expenditures on consultants etc in comparison to Cruz.



Finally, one more important thing to note... The makeup of the Payroll/Salaries between the two campaigns is quite different.

For Beto's campaign, the salaries/payrolls are split up between about 160 people, who received an average of about $6300 each (exact numbers will be off somewhat because the data is a bit noisy). What does that mean? It means that Beto is running a large field campaign with a lot of people being paid to campaign for him.

For Cruz's campaign, on the other hand, the salaries/payroll is split up between more like 20-25 people, with an average of more like $30,000-$50,000 each (with noise in the data again, for things like where only someone's first name was entered, a comma put in the wrong place, etc), with multiple people having received more than $100,000 in salaries. On Beto's campaign, there are 0 people who have gotten that much in salaries/payroll. That means that Cruz has a much smaller campaign with a relatively small number of people who get paid comparatively well to sit around in their offices and do office work of various sorts, as opposed to contact voters and organize volunteers directly.

[Florida Man for Crime]

RCP has made lying Ted Cruz' Senate Seat a Toss Up

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/senate/tx/texas_senate_cruz_vs_orourke-6310.html

That's the most hilarious thing I have ever heard. RCP is apparently more drunk than Brooklyn Beto was when he DWIed if they think that Titanium Titan of the Constitution 'Lyin Ted could possibly lose. I thought Sean Trende was smarter than this.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Yes.  I'm still bullish on my prediction that Cruz wins by 3-5% based on current polling.  The national environment may be nasty for Republicans, but I still don't think it's bad news to be a Republican in Texas...yet.

Sounds about right.

[Florida Man for Crime]

I think you need more than one primary election to be declared a good politician. Not that it's a negative mark or anything on his record, but we have other elections and now (part of) this campaign to look at.

Cruz came in 2nd in the 2016 Republican Presidential primary.

You do not come in 2nd (in a race with 10-20 candidates) in a major party Presidential primary without having some skill and feel for the pulse of the voters as a politician.

[Florida Man for Crime]

The realignment is real

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Some more information from the Telemundo description (only in Spanish it seems).

https://www.telemundohouston.com/noticias/local/Encuesta-de-Telemundo-y-Mason-Dixon-Beto-y-Lupe-favoritos-entre-hispanos-de-Texas-492513471.html

It is apparently a Mason-Dixon poll. They polled 625 Hispanic registered voters from 5 different regions (Dallas Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Brownsville-McAllen, and El Paso).

So it is not actually a proper statewide poll, even of Hispanics, just of these 5 regions.

O'Rourke is apparently ahead by 48 in the El Paso region and 39 in the Brownsville-McAllen region (as compared to 5 in the Houston region). But the article doesn't list the actual crosstabs for those regions, and doesn't say anything about DFW or San Antonio.

Looks all in all like mostly a junk poll.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Daily Kos claims that "holy crap, we can win Texas!"

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Ok, "stellar campaign" by Beto O'Rourke.

He also has that Civiqs poll that supposedly has Beto up by 1% embedded in the post at the link.



Relatedly, just before the election in 2004, Kos said:

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How did that turn out?

Republicans win. Coburn 52.77% - Carson 41.24%

Yeah, "one hell of a candidate" Brad Carson. He was probably running a "stellar campaign" like Beto O'Rourke.

Real close, an 11.5 point race. A literal coin flip leaning Dem.

[Florida Man for Crime]

No wonder Cruz is freaking out.

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Yeah, that is really big news if true. That is exactly what he has to do to have any chance of winning. He needs white college-educated suburbanites in TX who have never voted for a Democrat to suddenly start voting the same way as white college-educated suburbanites in other states.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Your ad hominem attacks do you no favor. Bagel23 is saying that O'Rourke still trails Cruz in the polls, but he is doing better than initially expected. Perhaps if you acknowledged that before attacking this person directly, people would be more inclined to take your views more seriously.

LOL, Doctor Imperialism was clearly joking. People would be more inclined to take you more seriously if you picked up on that sort of thing.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Wouldnt call this 3 months out Bagel

It's less than 2 buddy, but you are right anyways, I won't rule it out.

On the other hand, I would definitely rule it out 2-3 months in advance

[Florida Man for Crime]

Your ad hominem attacks do you no favor. Bagel23 is saying that O'Rourke still trails Cruz in the polls, but he is doing better than initially expected. Perhaps if you acknowledged that before attacking this person directly, people would be more inclined to take your views more seriously.

LOL, Doctor Imperialism was clearly joking. People would be more inclined to take you more seriously if you picked up on that sort of thing.

That is not what he was doing, and you should know better than that. And your response to me does little credit to your cause as well. Mocking and laughing at people, such as you have done, makes them less likely to want to have anything to do with you.

I think it is pretty obvious that he was joking. It is by far the more likely explanation given the context. If he wasn't, then there was no reason for it, but there is absolutely no reason to presume that.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Really? That is some comment coming from you.

Stop with the ad hominem attacks against my friend Jalaketu West. The comment is valid or invalid regardless of whether it came from him or her ("coming from you") or from anyone else, and you should direct your response at the argument, not the person.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Jalaketu West has said a number of objectionable things to me previously. At any rate, this thread should not be derailed any further then it already has been.

Whether or not Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalaketu West has said objectionable things to you previously is irrelevant to the intellectual argument advanced by Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalaketu West. That argument was namely that the purpose Doctor Imperialism was trying to achieve with Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Doctor Imperialism's post was to achieve the behavior known as "humor." Now, let's be clear. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalaketu West's argument that the purpose Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Doctor Imperialism was trying to achieve with Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Doctor Imperialism's post was to achieve the behavior known as "humor" is either a valid argument or an invalid argument, but its validity or invalidity does not depend upon the fact that Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalaketu was the person who put forth the argument into a public forum for our mutual due consideration and debate. Determining the validity of Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalekatu West's argument, rather, requires making an extensive and detailed list of the points that are pro and the points that are con. You must consider both sides of the argument in weighing the quality of the claim, and then think "on the one hand x, but on the other hand y."

In addition to this argument, Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalaketu West also deigned to make a suggestion that you yourself might consider trying to engage in the behavior known as "humor" some time. Of course, it goes without saying that in order to do such a thing you would also need to formulate a list of the arguments in favor and opposed to engaging in such a behavior. Now, let's be clear once again. The suggestion advanced by Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jalaketu West could be either a good suggestion or a bad suggestion, but the quality of the suggestion doesn't depend upon whether it was made by Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered User Jaleketu West, or alternatively by Donald Trump or Barack Obama (neither of whom, as far as I am aware, are Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Registered Users). Whoever made the suggestion, it is either a good one or a bad one on its own actual merits, wouldn't you say?

I hope that this post has been edifying and makes it easier to understand how to proceed in analyzing arguments on an online bulletin board such as the Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Forum Congressional Elections sub-forum.

[Florida Man for Crime]

I'm still a Texas skeptic, but I'm wondering what a potential win for O'Rourke would look like. Fortunately, he doesn't need a majority to win. Merely a plurality. My best guess would be something like this:
-60% in Harris County
-66% in Dallas County
-55% in Fort Bend
-plurality wins in Tarrant County and Williamson County
-75% in El Paso
-45% in Collin County
-45% in Denton County
-high mid-single digit wins in Hays, Jefferson, and Nueces County
-30% in Montgomery County (maybe too ambitious?)
-70% in Travis County
-60% in Bexar County
-shave about 5-10% off the Trump-Clinton margins in rural Texas.

That would point to about a 1-2% O'Rourke win

I think you may be overestimating the rural/small town vote he can plausibly get and underestimating what he needs in the urban/suburban counties.

In the rural areas, I would be (pleasantly) surprised if he can do any more than get back to Obama 2012 (particularly given that it is a midterm where non-white turnout is traditionally lower, and most of the votes Obama/Hillary would have gotten in rural areas are from non-whites). Even just getting back to Obama 2012 wouldn't be bad.

For example in Williamson County, although Clinton only got 41%, Trump only got 51%. A decent number of those 3rd party votes would not have gone 3rd party if they thought that TX's electoral votes would be competitive, and the rest of those voters are, I would think, much more winnable in a competitive Senate race than most rural Trump voters. Beto gets close to a plurality win just by winning over the 3rd party voters, so I think that he would want to do better than just a plurality win.

[Florida Man for Crime]

I made some benchmarks as rough estimates for the sorts of numbers Beto would need in order to achieve a narrow plurality victory (49.6%-49.5%).

These numbers should not be taken to indicate what I think is actually achievable, but rather what, more or less, would be needed for Beto to have a chance. I think they illustrate how difficult it would be for him to win.

The numbers for the urban/suburban counties actually ended up fairly close to what Mizzouian/Republicans for Nelson posted earlier (somewhat more than I would have guessed beforehand), although they are also a few points higher.


These benchmarks use 2014 turnout as a starting point for the share of votes cast in each county, and modify this to allow for increased turnout in urban and suburban counties, particularly the large and growing ones in the major metropolitan areas, and some smaller increases in turnout in counties with smaller cities (but not really "rural") and Hispanic border counties.

The starting point for the Democratic and Republican vote shares within each county is the Dem margin is whichever of the following 2 are higher:

a) The Clinton-Trump 2016 margin, with 3rd party votes significantly reduced and allocated mostly to Dems. Beto is assigned 70% of the Johnson voters, 85% of the Stein voters, and 35% of the write-in voters. Cruz is assigned 15% of the Johnson voters and 15% of the write-in voters.

OR

b) The Obama-Romney 2012 margin.

So basically, as a starting point this has O'Rourke doing at least as well as Clinton in the areas where Clinton did well in 2016, and as well as Obama 2012 in the areas where Clinton did worse than Obama.


This is then modified to account somewhat for Cruz's regional strength and weaknesses in the 2012 vote, as compared to Romney. Cruz did a bit better then in Latino areas, and a bit worse in Demosaur/rural racist areas (probably related to his surname and ethnicity). Half of the deviation between Cruz and Romney, relative to the overall statewide difference, is incorporated in this adjustment.

Next, 9% of Republican voters in major urban/suburban counties with lots of college educated white voters are swung to Democrats, and 2% of Republican voters in counties with smaller cities. The swing in El Paso is made larger (20% of Republican voters swing to Beto) to account for a presumed home town effect for Beto. There is no additional swing in rural counties, or in Hispanic counties.


The margins that Beto would need would look something like this on a county map:




Here's the swing in the margin as compared to the Clinton-Trump margin in the 2016 presidential race. This has large gains (in terms of percentage margin) for Dems in many rural counties with dwindling Demosaur populations relative to what Clinton got, to get back up towards the support levels Obama got in 2012, and also has substantial additional improvements over the gains Clinton already got in urban and suburban counties. The Hispanic border areas are a bit more of a mixed bag, with Beto expected to underperform there somewhat in at least some places:



And here's the swing as compared to the 2012 Senate race (Cruz against Sadler). This has Democrats making large gains in urban/suburban areas, but Republicans making some gains in rural areas that swung to Trump in 2016:




Here are these benchmarks sorted from largest turnout county to smallest:

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[Florida Man for Crime]

Here's the swing in the Dem margin from 2016-Pres:

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And here's the swing in the Dem margin from 2012-Sen:

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[Florida Man for Crime]

snip

Ugg, I had typed out a fairly long response, but then it got eaten by "session verification failed."

Will try to respond again later.

[Florida Man for Crime]

This notion that swing voters are wise and thoughtful centrists is one that needs to be dispelled. 

I'll drink to that. It is definitely a fiction that must be dispelled.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Cruz Will Win, you have definitely popped up at the top of my radar, as not only one of the best most recent Atlas posters, but additionally win extra points for style and humor....

I agree, even though we disagree on the Siena polling and its quality, its clear that you know what you are talking about, and are highly knowledgeable in politics. To that, I tip my hat(or some other sign of respect, I dunno)

Likewise to both of you - unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of Ted Cruz tipping his hat. He is apparently just not that kind of guy. So this from a two-time loser of statewide Texas elections will have to do.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Cruz will probably win but the "muh there's no way he loses!!" shtick is getting dumber and dumber by the day. It's really not rocket science: a candidate that's behind by 2 or 3 points in polling averages two months before the election has a significant chance to win their race. Everything else (like "where's muh coalition??") is irrelevant nonsense.

Even assuming that the polls are actually projecting a realistic electorate (not a very safe assumption in Texas), Beto's poll numbers are nothing to write home about. He has not led in a single poll, and his polling is about the same as Bill White's was in 2010.

Beto is only behind by 1 point, 39-38, in the latest poll, you say? (Emerson, 8/22 - 8/25)

Well, Bill White was also only behind by 1 point, 42-41, in the HRC/TexasWatch poll conducted at the same time in 2010 (8/25 - 8/29).

The 5 most recent polls at this time in 2010 had Rick Perry up only by an average of 4.2 points against Bill White in the TX Governors race.

And the 5 most recent polls currently have Cruz up by an average of 4.4 points against Beto in the current TX Senate race.

Also notice that all of these polls showing Beto seeming to be close have high undecideds (something in common with the polls that showed Bill White close). There's a reason we haven't seen any polls with Beto anywhere close to 50%.

(polling data from RCP)

Given that Beto is running in a much more favorable overall national environment than Bill White was, it is pretty telling that he can't even poll any better than Bill White polled.